Technical Field
This invention relates to the problem and technology involved in removing ingots of special or exotic metals from there molds.
Before the molten special or exotic metal for use in the aerospace industry is poured into a mold to form an ingot, the mold is coated with a solution to help prevent such molten metal from eating into the mold's inside wall. Nevertheless, the molten ingot burns into the mold wall sometimes despite the prior application of such preventive solution or coating. This presents a problem in the subsequent removal of the ingot, compounded by the fact that the mold is of uniform internal diameter because of subsequent operations that must be performed upon such ingot, such as rolling, etc. With the price of such metal ranging to $25.00 per pound, a 10-ton ingot is worth $500,000. The discussed problems of the ingot sticking in its mold has presented a factor of around 1 in 8 to 10 ingots sticking in their molds, and such that same could not be removed from their molds under any application of prior-art technology. In such instances of ingots that could not be removed from their molds, the only prior-art solution to removing such stuck ingots has been to physically destroy the molds to recover the ingots. Physically destroying such molds to remove their stuck ingots is expensive, as well as time consuming, because the molds for such special or exotic metals can be in the price range of $10,000 depending upon size.
Accordingly, the object of the invention is to contribute to the solution of the discussed problems of the art by providing a self-contained, non-polluting, mobile ingot extractor, that can be hauled or towed into a steel plant when the need arises, to remove stuck ingots of special or exotic metals from their molds.